Dismantling Tyranny

When a totalitarian group seizes power, one of the first institutions it creates is a secret political police. Since the birth of modern totalitarianism, in country after country, secret political police have been the predominant instruments of power, used to consolidate power, neutralize the opposition, and erect a one-party state. Yet, when these same totalitarian regimes have liberalized or collapsed, the secret political police have often managed to survive and even remain relevant.

Dismantling Tyranny: Transitioning Beyond Totalitarian Regimes provides a groundbreaking exploration of this survival tendency in seven formerly communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Latin America - and the lessons these transformations hold for future democratic revolutions. But Dismantling Tyranny is also much more: it is a guidebook designed to empower, inform, and guide future transitions toward democracy for those political leaders with the initiative, and courage, to embark upon such a visionary path.

Published in cooperation with the American Foreign Policy Council.

Ilan Berman is the vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C., where he directs the Eurasia program. He is an adjunct professor at American University, where he teaches international law and international security, and is a member of the Committe on the Present Danger. He has consulted for the CIA and the Pentagon. He is an expert on regional security and foreign policy in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Russian Federation. Berman is the author of Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States (2005).

Dr. J. Michael Waller is the Walter and Lenore Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics. He is a founding editor of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. He has consulted for the U.S. Information Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is the author of Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today.